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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24870190">Now It's Sweat; It's Sweat Now</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/greebled/pseuds/greebled'>greebled</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Casual Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Magic, Magical Cum, Mentions of Pregnancy, Oral Sex, Panic Attacks, Piercings, Semi-Public Sex, Squicks, Trans Male Character, cum</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:40:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,314</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24870190</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/greebled/pseuds/greebled</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It could have been the texture, but it also could have been the shift in sound effects from lewd (sexy) to lewd (floppy) that made Claude blink and look down. He leaned back some more, to see if he had cum splattered on him and just hadn’t noticed. Under normal circumstances, that would have been enough time for Sylvain to fight or flight it, but when his partner looked back up, still cupping his limp dick in his open palm like it was a cool caterpillar he found, Sylvain was still whale eyed, frozen in place.</i><br/>“...Um.” Concern sounded strange in Claude’s mouth. “Something I said?”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sylvain Jose Gautier/Claude von Riegan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>112</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    
  </em>
</p><p><em>And honey, I'm cultured</em><br/><em>I'm very sex-positive!</em><br/><em>But what is this feeling?</em><br/><em>It ain't so positive</em><br/><em>(oh, no!)</em><br/>-Car Seat Headrest, “It's Only Sex”</p><p>It was a perfect match; Fodlan’s most notorious hitter-and-quitter and a mysterious outsider who bolted at the first sign of anything deeper than lust. With a mutual distaste for attached strings, they were free to swing in and out of each others beds like randomly-eclipsing planets. Or, at least that’s how it felt to Sylvain. He had serious doubts about things being truly spontaneous, knowing this dude. Every time they did this, just as things started to heat up, Claude would get this impossibly smug look on his face that he usually reserved for when he was kicking his ass at chess.</p><p>If he ever needed to convince himself to cut ties, maybe he could tell himself he didn't think it was cute.</p><p>Until then, the smirk <em>was</em> really, very cute. It wasn’t seen so much as felt, a stripe of smooth teeth pressed to his neck, fitting there perfectly as the shorter man pinned him to the wall. Since their reunion a month ago, with their days busy and the halls of the monastery mostly empty, most of their flings were like this, hungry and desperate and mostly-clothed. It was all the more incentive to not stick around, to not talk too much. Two horny planets, eclipsing.</p><p>Claude huffed all self-satisfied against his throat, adorning him with a collar of open-mouthed kisses. Sylvain grabbed a good fistful of his curly hair, a good fistful of padded wyvern-riding butt, and let out a good, porny groan. It was loud enough that he could feel Claude’s shoulders stiffen for fear of being heard, hear the little hitch of his breath, and it was exactly the reaction he was hoping for. Chuckling, he gave his cock a lazy roll against Claude’s palm. Half-hard already. Sylvain had never needed much fluffing.</p><p>“I’m sorry, baby. I missed the hell outta you. None of the girls pounce me like you do. <em>None </em>of them,” he purred. “Goddess, I didn’t think you could get any hotter, but you really did fill out nice...” He knew some of his bulk was an illusion from his quilted outfit, but he nudged a thigh between Claude’s legs, enjoying the give that came from being well out of his gangly teen phase. It was also an invitation for him to grind on it, but he didn't. Claude wasn’t ready to drop his guard just yet. There was a split second where he worried they had a bigger gap in their desperation than he’d realized, but when Claude laughed against the tender, wet spots on his neck, it came out all shaky.</p><p>The first few words were lost on Sylvain, because that’s when he started stroking. Goddess, archers really had the best hands – the perfect mix of strength and softness. Sylvain melted against the wall, letting the guy work his magic. It was usually like this, they’d kiss and grope at each other until they were a mess, and then Claude would finish him off and leave. Sylvain didn’t mind. If anything, it made the rare gems of half-victories, where he’d gotten him off without even touching him, where Claude broke and touched himself, shine brighter than any of his more explicit endeavors.</p><p>When it finally processed, Claude’s voice was thick with desire, tempered by sounding completely and utterly unimpressed. “Mm, are you done? You’ve gotten handsome, too, but your pillow squawk is still… Well, if I was into canned lines...” He trailed off, swallowed, and pulled back to look at his face. His own carried a lazy grin… A <em>too</em>-lazy grin. Even though his blush, his eyes gave a glint as he set his plan into motion. “I would just read some more of your porn collection, I think.”</p><p>Sylvain somehow managed to moan with a question mark at the end. “C’mon, you, you hunk, I, why would I have porn when I can just have you, any time I want?”</p><p>“Is that what you think, Sylvain?<em> Any time you want?”</em> Finally, he ground on his leg, then, his next words coming as a groan. “That’d explain some things. I couldn’t figure out what the appeal was.”</p><p>What the fuck did that mean!? Claude’s pace was making it hard to think, but his overloaded brain did its best. What did that mean? Okay. Sure, he had some porn. Who didn’t? But the way Claude said it made him retrace his steps and… How could he have read any of it when he only kept a couple Bernie classics under lock and key? What was he forgetting? He grunted, annoyed. “Claude,” he whined, hating that it was a whine. “If you’re gonna… if you’re gonna pick apart my, ah, my fucking porn, at least take me to dinner first!”</p><p>Claude shifted his rhythm, pumping him long and slow, even standing on his tiptoes to get as close to looming over him as he could. This time, Sylvain’s moan wasn’t put on at all. “Feelin’ domestic, Gautier? Wanna keep me all to yourself? H-huh? You greedy, possessive...” Claude was honing in on something, but Sylvain couldn’t deduce shit in this state. He was maddening, the type of partner who lived to overwhelm you and whittle reality down to a pinprick. He was braced on his elbow, his cape blocking out the world behind him with a yellow curtain. Sylvain was close, he was so close, and then- shit- right against the shell of his ear- he was- ah- he was gonna- “You<em> Wild Studhorse,</em> you.”</p><p>Oh.</p><p>Scratch that, he absolutely wasn’t.</p><p>Nat all.</p><p>Not even a little bit.</p><p>Maybe not ever again.</p><p>Sylvain choked on his own spit with how quickly he attempted to bark a question. It didn’t matter. He already knew exactly what had happened here.</p><p><em>Wild Studhorse</em> was the name of a smutty novella, penned by the infamous Sir Charles Tingle VII, chronicling the adventures of a philanderer on a quest to sire as many children as possible. You could often find his works under better books at the market, and if you pulled one out and a child was nearby, the shopkeep would sometimes be so mortified they’d let you keep it if you promised to put it in your cloak as fast as you could. Ingrid had given it to him as a joke right before shit hit the fan with the war. Being a gift, and a stupid, harmless joke, he wanted to hold onto it, but the sight of it made him feel like a shaved, disgusting animal, and eventually it made its way into the garbage. Then, somehow, it fell into Claude’s scheming little villain fingers, with his name written on the inside of it and everything.</p><p>Claude completely misunderstood Sylvain’s shock, and he just kept talking. He’d always seemed to like the sound of his own voice in bed. “Ah ah ah, I knew it. Does it drive you crazy? Thinking about filling me up every time we do this?" He kissed him roughly on the mouth. “You think I’d make a good bitch, stud?” The dude actually chortled against his lips, which wasn’t a thing Sylvain thought possible outside of books like the one he was talking about. It would have gone straight to his cock, if his cock wasn’t as limp as a stocking full of ground poultry.</p><p>It could have been the texture, but it also could have been the shift in sound effects from lewd (sexy) to lewd (floppy) that made Claude blink and look down. He leaned back some more, to see if he had cum splattered on him and just hadn’t noticed. Under normal circumstances, that would have been enough time for Sylvain to fight or flight it. Today, though, when his partner looked back up, still cupping his limp dick in his open palm like it was a cool caterpillar he found, Sylvain was still whale eyed, frozen in place.</p><p>“...Um.” Concern sounded strange in Claude’s mouth. “Something I said?”</p><p>Thankfully for future Sylvain, he was still in his armor from patrolling earlier, so he hit the cobblestone with a CLACK CLACK that didn’t shatter his kneecaps. Claude stumbled back a pace, hands held up in a nonthreatening gesture. A complicated, worrisome gesture, coming from his least stressful friend with benefits. Sylvain couldn’t seem to get his face to work, or his eyes to focus, or his hands to move, and stared dumbly at the space between Claude’s legs. All the blood rushing back to his brain from his abandoned groin made him feel like he was drowning.</p><p>Claude shifted his weight on his feet, clearly debating weather he should touch him. “Did… Shit, Sylvain, was that too much? My bad, I thought it would be hot, I didn’t mean to-” Deciding not to, Claude went to take another step back, but Sylvain caught him by the belt so suddenly it made him flinch. His reflexes worked okay, but his tongue still didn’t. Sylvain shook his head, trying to clear it, and felt it roll around like a lead ball in his mouth.</p><p>“No, I’m good. I’m way good, man,” he warbled at last, throat scratchy from choking on it. “Babe.”</p><p>Claude, the absolute mastermind, was unconvinced. “Are you now, man-babe?” Damn it.</p><p>“Yes,” lied Sylvain, sweatily. “I was just, you’re right. Yeah, you're right. That's me. And it's gross so I... So I was gonna, um, suck you off?” He swallowed, knowing he was going to hurl if a cock went anywhere near his mouth but deciding that would be a less catastrophic end than... whatever this was. Couldn't talk and barf at the same time. His clumsy hands went for his belt buckle, and his suave smile was muscle memory enough to almost be believable. “To apologize for being, just, just really, really disgusting. Especially since you’re a guy, you’d think, you’d think I wouldn’t have to worry about it being a problem for once.”</p><p>“Mm, you’d think, huh?” Claude didn’t swat his hands away, possibly because with the way Sylvain was pawing at it, his fly wasn’t about to come open anytime soon.</p><p>“I mean, the… my kink. Yes. The one I have. It’s so weird to not have to with you. I gotta go about sex all different, ha. It was really hot, so, so too bad...”</p><p>“Not have to what, Sylvain?”</p><p>Sylvain is aware that he’s taking big gulps of air now, but he’s helpless to stop it. “To worry about getting you… I mean, wanting to get you… Knocking you up. You know, what everyone... Fuck’s sake, ha, what kind of fetish gets kids involved in it…! Disgusting. Ugh.”</p><p>Claude’s voice sounds closer, now, but he can’t really get much more information than that with his head between his own knees. “Yeah, I thought it was pretty gross, too,” he says, voice slow and steady like it’s a life raft Sylvain doesn't deserve to cling to. “It’s kind of a relief you’re not into it. I’m really, really not into it, either. I was just being a dick, trying to rile you up.”</p><p>“Such a dick,” agreed Sylvain. “Dick.”</p><p>“You know it, Margrave Man-Babe,” agreed Claude.</p><p>They stay there for a good long while, without saying anything. It occurs to Sylvain that Claude doesn’t seem to have any idea how to help, but he’s staying for far longer than he ever has under less stressful circumstances. It makes his skin crawl, he thinks. That must be it.</p><p>Once he’s sure enough he won’t pass out, Sylvain raises his head to find Claude sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of him, closer than he’d thought but not touching him. or even really looking at him, as if he’s sitting vigil. Noticing his movement, Claude meets his eye, and the two are quiet a moment longer before Claude clicks his tongue and says “Don’t worry, I’m not going mushy on you. I'm just sitting here so no one can see your junk hanging out.”</p><p>His phony sex noises may have stayed confined to the hallway, but Sylvain’s crowing laughter is loud enough to rattle the bones in the holy tomb.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>edited 8/21/2020<br/>changes:<br/>-edited out that sylvain had never touched claude back before, though what happens in ch2 is a first<br/>-edited "grinding his knee" to "grinding his thigh" to avoid sylvain battering ramming claude in the dick with a metal plate<br/>-edited out the word "psychoanalyzed", because sylvain is from faerghus, where therapy is illegal<br/>-various little spelling errors and clunky phrasings</p><p>im @goofylionking on twitter!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    
  </em>
</p><p><em>Come on, sexual desire, speak!</em><br/>-Car Seat Headrest, “It's Only Sex”</p><p>Claude got bucked from his wyvern at 1,000 feet.</p><p>The following months had been a low flame of malaise peppered with nightmarish pops. A fugue, then:</p><ul>
<li>The devastatingly chaste “Take care of yourself, Sylvain,” Claude had ended that miserable afternoon with.</li>
<li>The way staying up all night to deep clean his room only served to make him feel worse.</li>
<li>The way insecurity would rear its ugly head regardless of weather or not Claude was in the room, assigning damning meaning to both.</li>
<li>The rapid decline of his libido as the fear of another seemingly random shutdown lurked behind every corner.</li>
<li>Teach’s harebrained idea to send them, alone, on a quick bandit cleanup.<br/><em>(“You can handle it,” they said. “Besides, it surprises me that you’re not already friends.”)</em>
</li>
<li>The way that both of them laughed and neither said a damn thing.</li>
</ul><p>Still. Even one’s most difficult-to-approach ex-something becomes <em>“Oh shit, that’s a human body!”</em> when he’s bucked from his wyvern at 1,000 feet.</p><p>Sylvain did a quick calculation on how much time he had, and turned for a split second to javelin the archer responsible before catching him. Yanking the reigns, he turned his mount in a wide arc like a scaly, airborne boat, only to find that his catch wasn’t where he projected him to be. He was a fair bit higher up, and he was screaming. One loop higher, and Sylvain caught him in both arms like a noble sack of flour.</p><p>This set off a sequence of events that composed the longest ten seconds of either of their lives.</p><p>“I gotchya!” he yelled, then again even louder, because he wasn’t sure he was heard over all the continued screaming and shoving. What, was Claude afraid of heights? “Hey! Shh! I’ve got you! It’s me! Relax!”</p><p>Claude seemed to recognize where he was, now. He wheezed, gasped, trying and failing to regain control of his voice. “You have to let go of me,” he gritted out. Hearing that it was no use trying to sound anything but, he flung himself right back into hysterics. “Sylvain! Let go! Let <em>go!!”</em></p><p>What? He couldn’t just drop him! Once he got the arrow out of his leg, or whatever was causing him so much pain, he’d let Claude slap him as payback. “No can do, big guy,” he replied, really locking himself into his saddle so he could form a grip around his waist, unbreakably strong to an archer. Claude was boxing his ear now with one hand, his pleading no longer holding any shape, the other arm raised up to do… To do what?</p><p><em>“Sylvain!" </em>Claude sobbed.</p><p>He craned his neck back to look, just in time to take the hot, snarled huff of Claude’s strawberry-and-cream beast to the face. It was close enough to make out each individual scale, its great body akimbo behind her slender neck. Its red eyes were wide enough in panic to see the whites around them, drool flung everywhere with the way its jaw was forced open, its bit pulled down, bit attached to its reigns, reigns ensnared beyond untangling around Claude’s mangled arm and wrist, which was attached to Claude’s torso, which was ensnared in Sylvain’s death grip, and, obviously, Sylvain’s legs were securely stuck in his saddle, which, then...</p><p>Sylvain’s wyvern did a great flap towards the ground before he could stop him. What followed was a completely indecipherable mess of wings and claws and bodies and wooshing air. Spinning, spinning, the color of the world spun out and dimming fast. Claude’s crest, unsure what to do with such rapid fire damage, flickered and strobed as they spun through the sky. The last thing Sylvain heard before his consciousness was stripped from him was a shout, almost certainly something very mean and pointed and deserved.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p>
  <br/>
  <em>"Hu, hu, hu..."</em>
</p><p>With his mouth so close to the lip of the bottle, Claude’s husky chuckling was accompanied by a symphony of dumb little toots.</p><p>He was laid heavily against a large chunk of dead desert tree. They were fortunate enough to be within dragging distance to a slightly shaded oasis. Even though he’d been stripped of his protective coat, Claude was too deeply in shock to mind his itchy backrest. His bad arm was laying across it like a gnawed-on toothpick. It was still terribly broken, even after the repeated efforts of his crest and a few concoctions, but at least it seemed to be bending in the right directions now.</p><p>Beside him, Sylvain was licking his own wounds. There wasn’t really a pleasant way to fall from a great height in a tornado of lizards, but he got off lucky. Just a few gashes that looked worse than they were, very sore legs, and a wheeze to his breath that suggested some broken ribs. It wasn’t anything that couldn’t wait for a healer. He was a gentleman, so he let Claude nurse through their modest supply of healing potions, tending to himself the old fashioned way.</p><p>After the fall, Sylvain's rent-a-wyvern from the stables fled, but Claude ordered his own to get help at the monastery. Sylvain was skeptical about weather she was smart enough to do such a thing, but Claide vouched for her, and it wasn't like they had a choice. The sun hung low in the sky, over the dunes.</p><p>“Having fun there?” His question was muffled as he awkwardly tore a gauze wrap with his teeth. Claude had barely spoken since they landed. If he had to guess, he’d say it had something to do with being self-aware of his post-traumatic loose tongue. It seemed like a risk Claude would hate taking. Maybe that's why he never took him up on offers to hit the pub.</p><p>At first, he only snorted a laugh, and Sylvain was happy to accept that as an answer. He went back to fixing a bandage around his forearm. “Y’know,” The surprise of hearing Claude’s voice again spurred him on to tighten it the last little bit. “If this happened back home, you’d have your hands full throwing a feast together right now.”</p><p>“Yeah? How do you figure?” Sylvain couldn’t keep the delight out of his tone. Captive audience or no, this was the first time he’d spoken to him in weeks.</p><p>“A barbarossa gets two feasts. They’re kind of a big deal,” Claude looked to him then, cocking an eyebrow. His gaze was still glassy, posture a mess of contradictions between too dazed to care and too pained to relax, but he was far more present than he had been. His loopy grin was sincere. “The f... <em>first</em> one… Is my finger moving?”</p><p>Sylvain looked behind him to check. He inhaled a little through his teeth. “Well... It’s not <em>not</em> moving.”</p><p>Another amused huff. “Thanks for your honesty. We’ll say I’m not punching you in the shoulder now because I don’t want to, not because I can’t.” Claude polished off his concoction, the aside serving as a reminder for why he was suffering though the damn things. Sylvain uncorked another, and he took it. He cleared his throat. It cracked a little anyway. “Where was I?”</p><p>“You were bragging about your wyvern riding skills.” Sylvain smirked. “<em>Now,</em> somehow.”</p><p>“As I should!” He insisted. So many s’s so close together underscored that he was shivering, and it made Sylvain’s heart do something funny. “Because barbarossas get two feasts. They’re a big deal. The first one’s obvious: when you get, ach...” He tapped his fingers against the cool glass of the potion, trying to find the word. “...When you get knighted, but as a barbarossa. It’s different than knighting ceremonies here, though, and after there’s always one hell of a party.”</p><p>Sylvain put his hand to his chest, pretending to be aghast. “And you didn’t invite me! Am I not a big enough deal?”</p><p>Claude knew he was having trouble keeping his thoughts straight, so he gave him a gentle kick instead of derailing again. It made them both wince and chuckle. “The other feast,” he said firmly, “is after his first bad crash. And it’s twice as big!”</p><p>“What? You’re joking!” It had been his long-held theory that Claude made up most of his stories, but this one was out there even for him. Still, he gave him his full attention, staring as his throat worked to dump more magical fluid into his system. “For what? To take ‘em down a peg? A whole party about how a Big Tough Barbarossa ate it!?”</p><p>Claude choked. “No, no, no! Jeez, do you ever turn that church guilt off?”</p><p>“...Huh?”</p><p>Claude shook his head and moved on. “It’s to celebrate his invincibility, is why.”</p><p>Sylvain crossed his arms and leaned back on their makeshift furniture. He looked him up and down, smile only growing as he took in the irony before him. Skeptical as he was, he had only fondness in his voice. “Yeah? You’re lookin’ pretty vincible to me right now.”</p><p>Claude rolled his eyes. “See, I used to think that was a translation difference, but it’s not. It’s a difference of values. Invincible means <em>unbeatable</em>, right? But! ‘Round here, people like to equate that with never getting hurt. That’s such a defeatist way to look at it, right? Not getting hurt is impossible, and it’s a diversion, too. How can you know you’re invincible if you never endure anything?” He set his empty bottle on the ground so he could command full use of his hand. He didn’t take his eyes off Sylvain for a moment. “If you never get hurt, that’s not invincible! That just means you’re lucky. Surviving things that should have killed you, though...”</p><p>As his rough voice trailed off, Sylvain observed him again, through a different lens. It was hard not to default to his usual assumptions at first; Claude’s tattered, spacious riding pants only served to make his upper half look smaller, clad only in a thin, baggy undershirt. He knew from experience that he was deceptively muscular, even if the flow of the fabric chose to highlight whatever softness fell away from the strength of his core, especially the paunch above his belt and the unhindered extra padding of his chest. He was still trembling from his adrenaline comedown, and blotched in enough bruises to make a piebald horse jealous. But he was here, miraculously, smiling and determined and alive beside him.</p><p>A tap on the back from Claude’s previously-dead arm made him jump out of his reverie, focus snapping to what was perhaps the cockiest grin he’d ever seen. “Pretty sexy, huh, Gautier?”</p><p>What else was there to do but kiss him?</p><p>It was clear from the beginning that he was still too battered to move very much, but Sylvain could work with that. The pace was slow and thoughtful but far from dainty, something akin to a luxuriating grind of hips. Claude smiled into it – that damn, knowing smile – and decided the best place in the world for his only hand to be was in Sylvain’s sandy, sweat-dampened locks. Sylvain moaned a little, because he wanted Claude to hear it. His own hand busied itself rubbing slow circles against Claude's sore ribs. He tasted like concoctions, a tree-sappy, fake-sweet, plantlike flavor with an unpleasant effervescence. He’d come to associate it with pain and fear, but maybe after a kiss like this that would change.</p><p>It was nice. It was really nice. But, just as he started wanting more, to throw his wobbly lag over Claude’s lap, Sylvain pulled back. Claude didn’t chase him, but he kept his hand in his hair, stroking his fingers through and looking like he’d just woken up from the world’s nicest nap.</p><p>“Aw, why’d you stop?” The question was light, teasing.</p><p>Why <em>did</em> he stop? Claude took a deep sigh, and Sylvain couldn’t help but mimic it. “Do you...” He stalled out, trying to find words. He wished he was allowed to stare into the middle distance and internally rehearse for an hour first like Claude had been able to. He tried again. “Aren’t you worried I’ll hurt you?”</p><p>“Ohh, you’re definitely going to hurt me,” he laughs, scratching his scalp. “This is the stupidest place we’ve fucked around, yet.”</p><p>Sylvain laughs, too, but his hand has gone cold at his partner’s side. His fingers are turned into his palm, like he has claws he’s afraid to use. There’s entirely too long of a pause before he amends. “On... Purpose, I mean.”</p><p>Claude retreats his hand, then, but only to prop his chin up with it, elbow to the log. “I’m not one of your maidens, Sylvain. I like that this is shallow. The last thing I want is for you to whisk me off my feet to your frigid little castle and make me your queen.”</p><p>He must have made a face, because Claude’s eyebrows raise. When he speaks again, it’s with a sheepish shrug. “Alright, I’m not gonna pretend I know what’s happening. You have the floor.”</p><p>There’s nothing he hates more than being so raw, but maybe the fall has him a little vulnerable, too. Claude could have <em>died</em> thinking he didn’t want to kiss him anymore. That would have been a tragedy. “Okay,” heaves Sylvain. This time, the pause feels less dire, but once he collects his thoughts, he gives Claude a challenging glare. “This is going to be a total mood-killer, are you ready?”</p><p>The glare is reflected right back at him. “Try me, you orange bastard.”</p><p>“Everybody knows that I break hearts for sport. I’m allergic to commitment, I’m never, ever satisfied. I have no standards at all. I insist to people that story Ingrid tells about me hitting on a scarecrow is a lie, but it’s not. I was drunk, but it’s… This never leaves this log, but I did do that.”</p><p>“Mmh,” moaned Claude. “Tell me more.”</p><p>Sylvain swats Claude’s hand away from where it’s teasing one of his own nipples. “Quit it! I’m trying to be vulnerable, here!” He laughs at him, and it’s contagious. “Goddess blood, Claude.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, I was trying to help…!” </p><p>Once he has his pained giggles under control, Sylvain musses with his own hair to steel himself. “I guess what I'm saying is I’ve earned my reputation, and… You know? I’m proud of it. I feel like I’ve earned it like I’ve earned a good grade. Does that make sense? I can be a real piece of shit, but I haven’t ever ruined someone’s life. People I’ve slept with look back on me and are embarrassed, or their feelings are hurt, and they might even hate me a little, but I’d never, ever…”</p><p>“You aren’t trying to take anything from them,” Claude finished the sentence. He was impossibly serious, now. “Did what I said scare you so much because, if I was right, it would have put your reputation in a grisly light?”</p><p>“Yes,” Sylvain says, from somewhere deep deep inside he hadn’t even unearthed all the way yet. “I know girls put up with me because they hope I’ll fall for them and marry them into my family, and that’s always made me feel disgusting. So the idea that you might have wanted that fucked me up, I guess. That sucked, but the idea that, I don’t know, maybe I had it backwards all this time, that's fucked. That I was lying to myself and it was me who wanted to go around knocking up chicks, it kept me up for days.”</p><p>There’s a laugh from Claude, but it’s completely without humor. “Sylvain, wouldn’t you be the first to know something like that?”</p><p>“I don’t know. Why did you assume I’d want to use you like that? It’s the only logical next step for someone who’s already such a...” His chest aches, and it has nothing to do with his ribs. His eyes prickle, and he rubs his forearm across them, but that only gets sand in there. He leaves his arm in place, and finds that he’s suddenly all choked up. “I don’t want to get worse and for nobody to be surprised.”</p><p>Sylvain stays very still for a moment, like he knows what they have is thin ice and he knows he’s just stomped all over it. He’s staying completely still, hoping that when it breaks the water will have the mercy to take him quickly and painlessly.</p><p>Instead, a warm hand is on his thigh. He wants to shove Claude away, but he remembers his injury and freezes. “O-kay,” he says. “I’m not good at this sort of thing. Maybe we can trade?” Sylvain doesn’t have the brave to remove his arm yet, but he can feel Claude is about as close as he can get while limited in his mobility. Since he removed his armor to check his injuries, his fingers trace directly against his leg. Claude is waiting for a response, so Sylvain nods.</p><p>“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I can be a bit of a control freak,” Sylvain cuts him off with a dry, shuddering laugh, and really misses out on the affronted glare that earns him. “Listen, I just like to know what I’m getting myself into. So, when I caught you making eyes at me way back then, I did what any stupid, horny teenager would do.”</p><p>Sylvain sniffled. “Suck me off at the training grounds in a fit of passion?”</p><p>“Fuck, no. Not first. <em>First</em>, I hunted down as many of your exes as I could.”</p><p>Sylvain slowly lowered his arm from his eyes so he could properly gawk at him.</p><p>“I gossiped until I could fill a journal with dirt on you, slept on it, and <em>then</em> I went and blew you.”</p><p>“Hold on, do you actually have a physical journal of-”</p><p>Claude put his sandy fingers to Sylvain’s lips. “People love to talk shit about their terrible exes, and, boy did they have a lot to say about <em>you.</em> None of them had a single complaint about your kindness in bed, though. Not a one in that whole flock of chickens.”</p><p>The past few weeks after their ill-fated encounter had been the longest dry spell Sylvain endured in recent memory, so to hear that made him perk up unabashedly. He grinned behind Claude’s fingers. “Aw, c’mon, don’t tell me stuff like that just to make me feel better! I’m gonna let it all go to my head if I’m not careful.”</p><p>He pushed his face away, then made a show of wiping his hand on his shirt. “Well, be careful. You’re enough of a quick shot as it is, according to the census.”</p><p>Sylvain laughed and mumbled something about how that couldn’t possibly be right. To his surprise, the hand was back at his thigh and squeezed reassuringly. “Look, that’s not the point. What I’m saying is this paranoia isn’t based in anything. People you sleep with hate you, but they aren’t afraid of you. And none of them said anything about you trying to knock them up and lock them down. You're so thorough, it hasn't even happened on accident.” Claude leaned in and kissed his filthy cheek. “I know you’ll take good care of me.”</p><p>Distantly, he knew Claude was just choosing his words carefully to avoid saying anything about <em>trust</em>, but his final affirmation made him smile all big and dopey. This flusters Claude right back, and maybe it’s because of that that he lets him gather his face up in both palms and kiss him. Too close to see that way.</p><p>“Then, I haven’t scared you off?” Sylvain baits, between excitable kisses. He knows he should be careful, but when his fingers find the cool metal of his earrings, he cant help but play with them. “With my dumb feelings? Lord von Riegan, you’re giving me the vapors...”</p><p>With his arm still being stitched together, Claude continues to stroke him one-handed. His legs, his hip, tugging the fabric closer when Sylvain tugs his hair. “So needy,” is all he offers back, but he says it all soft and charmed like a pet name.</p><p>They stay like this for some time. The gentle slowness that comes with no one being around to catch them is new. It leaves them open to explore instead of just making a break for whatever would rile them up the most in the fewest touches. Sylvain about rubs the pads of his fingers raw tracing Claude’s stubble, eventually probing lower to sink them into whatever hair he can touch under the deep v of his undershirt, his chest vibrating as he hums in approval. The palm leaves above them rustle in the breeze, all else is quiet.</p><p>It’s only when they’re well and truly tangled up in each other that Claude moves to cradle Sylvain’s junk through his skivvies. Sylvain tenses when he finds it to be completely soft, but Claude only mumbles against his lips, smooth as silk. “Hey, now. Relax, Sylvie. I’m not offended. It's really kinda cute.” He kisses him again, explores, traces the heavy, disarmed shape of it with a tenderness that makes Sylvain blush hard though his sunburn.</p><p>“Yeah, but, saints,” Sylvain swallows. “I wanna take care of you.” After a lifetime of inopportune, halfhearted hard-ons, to be rendered impotent when he’s so eager everywhere else is a gutwrenching betrayal. Claude’s all kiss-bitten and pliant, it’s driving him crazy, but there’s still a wall between his head and his cock. He kisses the corner of his jaw, and the little gasp that gets out of him lights up all the nerves in Sylvain’s body above his waist. “What if I took you instead, huh? I think about that a lot...”</p><p>Claude gave Sylvain the world’s tenderest ass grab. “No dice. Left that cock at the dorms.” His voice drops an octave. A game begins. “What else you got?”</p><p>“Hmm...” Ponders Sylvain. He nuzzles against him, finds the little bumps of his spine under his shirt. “I’m told I’m pretty good with my hands. I’ve got the nicest penmanship in the house, if you know what I mean.”</p><p>“Pass. I don’t wanna be finding sand up in there any longer than I’m already going to. Try again.”</p><p>“Ouch.”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah,” when Claude laughs, Sylvain can feel it in his pulse. “And you thought you were tragic, huh?”</p><p>“Nah, you’ve got it all wrong. I meant, ouch, baby… I bare my heart to you, you tell me how safe and good and sweet I am...” Sylvain cranes his neck and licks at Claude’s earrings. It’s a fluttering, practiced motion, followed by a firmer lick up the side of his ear. It makes Claude make the most fantastic, strangled <em>a-ah-!</em> and puts him in perfect position to sigh his next words into his ear. “And you’re still too shy to just ask me to eat you out?”</p><p>The hand at his ass is a lot less gentle all of a sudden. Sylvain didn’t notice Claude had stopped breathing until his next breath comes as a decidedly un-stoic shudder.</p><p>Check.</p><p>“H-hey,” he squeaked. <em>Squeaked</em>. “Here’s an idea: What if you sucked my dick?”</p><p>Mate.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Both of them are injured, so it takes some grunting and finagling and generally unsexy prep to get them into position. Even after chugging his weight in healing potions, Claude’s arm is still going to need faith magic and time to be anything he can put weight on. The whole left side of his body is sore along with it. Jostling him, propping him up better on his makeshift backrest with his coat folded under him for extra support, nearly kills the mood.</p><p>Laying on his stomach, situated all pretty between his legs, Sylvain takes a moment to snag his nails on the stitches of his pants, to give the stripe of exposed skin between his belt and shirt a long glance, a kiss. Positioned how they are, he meets Claude’s gaze easily.</p><p>
  <em>(“I gotta be able to see you,” he’d said, more composed than before but still a smidge raw. “Or I just can’t get my head into it.”)</em>
</p><p>Seeing his face still pinched in pain, Sylvain cocks his head to the side. “You sure you’re up to this right now? It’s a standing offer, you know.” Continuing the trajectory, he lets his cheek rest on the pillow of his thigh, smiling easily. He traces a little squiggle on his opposite thigh with a finger. “I’m always down to blow a barbarossa.”</p><p>Claude hums, but answers by hooking a boot around his shoulders, pulling him in. Remembering his ribs, it doesn’t hurt as much as Sylvain was prepared for it to. For the first time since propositioning him, he looks himself again, and sports a sharp, hungry smile. “If you wanna be nice, distract me.”</p><p>Sylvain obliges, busying his hands with untying the cloth sash around his waist, then pulling his pants down just enough to reveal his prize. As much as he’d like to undress him completely, that would have to wait for a time where he didn’t have to worry about getting a mouthful of desert. His waistband was generous enough to allow ample room, at least, as well as a clear view of his canvas.</p><p>Curly, dark hair seemed to pool here from where it was spilled down his front, to then splatter against the silky, thin skin of his inner thighs. He clearly wasn’t having the same brain-to-cock blockage Sylvain was coping with. The wetness slicked in the cowlicks of his mane, the plush ridges of his partially-hidden folds glistened coyly in the light of the setting sun, to say nothing of the cock itself. He was well-furred, but he wasn’t unkempt. Sylvain was charmed to find Claude had developed a similar strategy to his own for complimenting his length, keeping things trimmed close around its base to set it forward. It was a nice touch.</p><p>Of course, Sylvain only noticed all these things after blinking lust-drunkenly at his warped reflection on the heavy, gold barbell poking proudly out of the dark tissue</p><p>He doesn’t even try to hide how smitten he is. Claude had this imperious kind of posture going for him, propping his chin up and watching down his nose, but in that moment Sylvain swears he could see his eyes crinkle just a little around the edges. “Goddess, you’re handsome,” comes his breathy sigh. He almost doesn’t want to touch him, so he can keep drinking in the sight of him all naturally mussed up by the jostle of the ride and the excitement their foreplay. But, if he has to, he starts by carefully, experimentally nosing the upper exposed piece of his piercing. “Did it hurt?”</p><p>“When I fell from heaven, or when I got that done? To answer both,” he clicks his tongue, nonchalant. “Nah, not really. Not as bad as falling from a wyvern.”</p><p>Surprised by this answer, he looks down to see that he hasn’t pierced his dick, just the thin foreskin of sorts laid over the top of it. The entry hole was high up on his length, meaning the metal ran all the way down it directly, under the sheath, a place nothing otherwise would be able to reach, before poking out alongside the exposed head. His mouth waters, but he still asks first: “There any secrets you want to share? Before I start?”</p><p>The question disarms Claude, but not in a bad way. He narrows his eyes to think, drumming his fingers against his jaw, eventually offering him a somewhat vulnerable smile. “Sylvain, don’t get all modest on me. I know you’ve sucked cocks before.”</p><p>An equally obscured answer for Sylvain’s obscured question. He laughs, understanding completely, and presses a kiss to Claude’s hip. “Say no more.”</p><p>Sylvain rucks himself up a bit higher. He begins by pampering the lowest slope of his belly. Just little kisses and licks, so close yet so far, meandering down the trail, approaching it like he would a dick of triple the length. His skin jumped under the first few, then just shook lightly on its own when Claude caught on to what he was doing and started snickering to himself.</p><p>Broad hands hold his waist, squeezing the fat so he can feel the wall of muscle a bit below the surface. It’s because he can, but also a safety measure he’s grateful for as soon as the flat of his tongue rasps up the side of Claude’s aching cock. He hisses, and only Sylvain’s steady grip keeps his body from following the erratic buck of his hips. “Shh, easy there. We just started!” He noses into the cleft of his junk playfully. “Don’t hurt yourself. Let me handle this.”</p><p>“Fine.” Above him, Claude cards his hand through his own hair, self-soothing. “This time.”</p><p>That little promise makes him beam, the corners of his mouth creeping upwards even as he returns his focus to the task at hand. He’s teasing, experimenting, eyes drifting shut as he maps Claude out with his mouth. He starts where it’s less intense, lapping along his outer labia and the base of his cock before he gradually works his way in. When he finally hazards a firm lick upwards, he doesn’t buck into him, but he does twitch and strain against the urge. “What, do you wanna fuck my mouth? Oh, sweetheart,” teases Sylvain, in that velvet voice he knows drives him up a wall. He lolls his tongue under the drape of him, feeling the odd weight of his piercing. Now that its slick with spit, it slides easily, stroking him on the inside. “I want you to fuck my mouth, too.”</p><p>With that, he dips down, deep and exaggerated, and takes Claude’s cock down to the base. It’s not completely analogous to what he knows, but Sylvain’s a creative guy, and he delivers an expert, hungry press to the buried underside of him as his lips seal and suck him all around. Claude gasps, and Sylvain has to pin his leg down with an elbow to prevent him from kicking out. Whatever magic or herb regimen Claude is adhering to to make his body feel more like home has him much better endowed than he would be otherwise. There’s a heft to his member, its length resting pleasantly on his tongue like a bejeweled thumb. Though his mouth is far from empty, he has considerable space to play with. So, he plays.</p><p>During their other encounters, he’s shown himself to be quiet unless there’s a good reason, but the noise he makes when Sylvain dials back the pressure to swirl him in his mouth is pure and unrefined music. He pants wetly around him, bobbing his head so Claude pumps into him rather than being passively sucked. With less meat in the way, Sylvain’s louder, too, unmuffled. He hasn’t completely abstained from jerking off these last weeks, but it’s the first time he’s actually enjoyed himself during a sexual act since his panic attack. A heel drags down his spine, a shiver following soon after when Claude groans a slow affirmation. The realization that he <em>likes</em> who he is between Claude’s legs makes him moan right back, his own hips grinding into the ground. The indulgent sound of his lips smacking against slick flesh etches itself into the far reaches of his memory.</p><p>A hand fists into his hair, and Sylvain breaks his own heart to grab his wrist. “Claude, babe-” he slurs, not even removing him all the way to speak.</p><p>“Sh, hah, shut up,” he blurts, and Sylvain has to look up at him through his lashes because, oh, he is wrecked. He hasn’t even touched him over the waist, but he’s done enough damage himself. His hair is somehow even more disrepair than it was after his crash, his usually hunter-sharp look clouded with want. Reaching forward has to hurt right now, but- "It's worth it."</p><p>Without breaking eye contact, he sinks all the way down and back up again, punishingly slowly, hollowing his cheeks, and it makes Claude throw his head back with such stupid-horny abandon it hurts his shoulder and activates his crest. Sylvain can’t help chuff in muffled amusement when the ancient mystery magics make his barbell vibrate against his teeth, but he’ll tell him about it later. Claude’s fingers are gripped tight in his hair, shuddering whenever he does something that drives him especially mad. They nearly rip a fistful out when he hooks his tongue as far down as it can go, inside, following the erect stalk of his cock into its molten core, and Sylvain thinks it would take an entire team of horses to keep him from bucking then.</p><p>Claude cries out, even though his voice is still raw from doing it in pain before, and Sylvain does everything he can to escalate the feeling as hard as he can. He lets him yank and shove at him, uses the clever curl and retreat of his tongue to gift the sensation with extra length, and feels the head and metal tip of him ram against his tastebuds with each pump. Sylvain’s world begins and ends in the hot, chaotic bracket of Claude’s thighs, until all of a sudden its foundation shakes apart.</p><p>His only regret is that when Claude comes, his earmuffs are too tight for him to hear it.</p><p>They’re both breathing ragged when his legs finally pop apart, falling ungracefully to either side. Claude’s still moaning at the edges of his gasps, his hand back in his own hair. “Fuck,” he says, inelegantly. “Fuck, your mouth. No one… warned me about your mouth.”</p><p>Sylvain isn’t sure how Claude would feel about a between-the-legs tongue bath, so he benches it until he can ask. In the meantime, he rests his cheek on his stomach, settling for licking the astringent smear off his lips. “Well, duh. You didn’t interview any handsome barbarossas, did you?”</p><p>Claude rolls his hips against his chest, biting his lower lip against the diffused pressure. “H… Hah…? Wha's a barba<em>rossa?</em>” He grins all goofy when that gets a rasping laugh from Sylvain, snickering himself until it peters out into a deeply satisfied sigh. He’s too tired to go another round, letting his butt rest back on the ground. “Ah-h, what’d you do to me…?”</p><p>To see someone so vigilant relax so completely in front of him, in the middle of nowhere, has him feeling warm all over. Usually, he can barely stand to leave things messy after sex for any amount of time. Right now, he’s happy to use him as a sweaty pillow for just a moment longer. Claude reaches down to rub his shoulders. It’s tempting to just laze in the silence, but...</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>“Hey...” Claude looks half asleep. His fingers are swooping lightly now, almost buckling under the weight of his palm.</p><p>“Thanks for this, man.”</p><p>“For letting you blow me?”</p><p>“For trusting me.”</p><p>The fingers at his back stop.</p><p>“Guess that would be the word for it, huh?”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, the two finally peel apart so Sylvain can mop himself clean-ish in the shallow, glittering waters of the oasis. He doesn’t notice he’s hard until he’s standing, and Claude gives him a sleazy look-over and low whistle. “Look at you.” He leans forward just a little, enough to stroke his flat stomach. His fingertips catch just so on his waistband. Low and husky, he asks “Can I watch?”</p><p>His cock throbs at that, as it should, as it hasn’t for anything in ages, and Sylvain knows he’s smiling just a bit too big. “I dunno, can you?” Claude smirks and lets his arm drop, allowing him to strut off towards the pond. It’s more triumphant than it is sexy already, so he doesn’t resist the urge to just flop backwards into the water once he reaches it. It isn’t as refreshing as he was hoping, all heated by the sun, but it makes his shirt cling to the ripples of his muscles and the tent of his cock in a way he really likes. Judging by the way he settles in and inches a hand towards his own, Claude likes it, too.</p><p>Putting on a show, he finger-combs water though his hair, arching his back. “Goddess, I wanna do that again,” he luxuriates. “I can’t remember the last time I had dick that amazing. What am I supposed to do now that I know how good you taste? I’m a busy man, Claude!” He quirks his hips, showing the harsh outline of his desire. This is still a bath with a purpose, though, so he at least runs his hands up and down his muscular, gross arms as he dirty talks. “Fuck, being between your legs was just, just...”</p><p>There’s a plunk in the water as the heavy, blood-soaked wrap on his arm slips off. Shit. How had he forgotten about that? One of his wyvern’s talons had tore him a new one, it hurt like crazy to dress it. He fakes a passionate sigh, then, to buy him some time, so he can look at the disgusting wound without killing his vibe.</p><p>He glances. Then, he stares.</p><p>Smooth, unmarred skin.</p><p>When Sylvain swallows, he can taste Claude there, the notes of his body almost completely overpowered by the tingly, herbaceous flavor of concoctions.</p><p>“It was what?”</p><p>“Holy shit! It was healing!” Sylvain waves his arm around ecstatically.</p><p>“Ugh! Stop! Don’t be tacky!” Groans Claude.</p><p>“No, no, I mean-!”</p><p>“And lose the damn shorts!”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>edited 10/14/2020<br/>being good about editing these very lightly but just so you know i pulled every muscle in my body refraining from getting rid of that weird bullet list part<br/>hhhrrrghgchggvvff</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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